The '''Design Automation Conference''', or '''DAC''' is a combination of a technical conference and a trade show, both specializing in Electronic_design_automation. DAC started as the SHARE design automation workshop in 1964, and has been held yearly since. Up until the mid-70s, DAC had sessions on all types of design automation, including mechanical and architectural. After that, for all intents and purposes, only topics concerned with electronic design have been included. Also until the mid-70s, DAC was strictly a technical conference. Then a few companies started to request space to show their products, and within a few years the trade show portion of DAC became the main focus of the event. The first commercial DAC was held in June 1984. As a rough metric of the importance of the trade show portion, about 5500 people attended DAC in 2005, whereas ICCAD, at least as strong technically but with no trade show, drew perhaps a tenth as many attendees. Other similar conferences are ICCAD (technical only, no trade show), Design and Test Europe (DATE), and the Asia South Pacific Design Automation Conference (ASPDAC). Over the past few years the conference location has been alternating between San_Diego, Anaheim, and San_Francisco. The conference is usually held in mid-June except when it is held in San Francisco when the conference is held in late July. DAC is sponsored by several professional societies: ACM-SIGDA (Association_of_Computing_Machinery, Special_Interest_Group_on_Design_Automation), EDAC (EDA Consortium), IEEE-CAS/CANDE/CEDA (Institute_of_Electrical_and_Electronics_Engineers, Circuits_and_Systems_Society, Computer-Aided_Network_DEsign_Committee, and Council_on_EDA), in technical cooperation with IEEE-SSCS (Solid-State_Circuits_Society). == References == *Main DAC web site *ICCAD, DATE, and ASPDAC websites. Category:Electronic_design_automation